


History of a Romance

by vifetoile



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, Oral History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 18:38:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7695106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vifetoile/pseuds/vifetoile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asami visits Republic City's University. There, Kya's friend, Professor Sedna, tells Asami the story of Kuruk and Ummi's romance - with plenty of historical context. Kya provides snarky commentary.</p><p>A missing moment from "As Ummi."</p>
            </blockquote>





	History of a Romance

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for all you folks who like your history and romance to be quite dry and academical. I know you're out there! 
> 
> Also, this is a missing moment from "As Ummi" - as a matter of fact, I had the idea for this story after I had already published the place where it would go. It's also quite indulgent, so I decided to make it its own story. Months later. You know how it goes. This goes into the chapter "In which Asami tells a story." 
> 
> If you haven't read "As Ummi," all you need to know is that Asami is researching her own past lifetime, and the chance that she is the reincarnation of Ummi herself. It's slow burn Korrasami romance mixed up with spiritual shenanigans.

The University of Zei was a young school, as far as universities went. For age and prestige, it could not hold its head among such ancient behemoths as the University of Ba Sing Se, or the School of Flint and Steel in the Fire Nation capitol. But in just forty years, it had managed to surprise everyone – as inventions by Sokka tended to do.  
Sokka of the Water Tribe, when he had founded the school, had not focused on manuscripts or on tangible treasures. The heart of his institution had always been the people.   
He had gathered the first generation of teachers by hand. Whether they were self-taught or steeped in tradition, whether they preferred speech or writing, whether they were city philosophers or eccentric hermits, they all had a deep love for their subject, and fortunately, most of them enjoyed teaching, as well.  
Once the heart of the school was settled, gathering a student body was easy. He opened the school to all who wished to learn, remembering a certain restless boy of the South Pole, and his ever-curious, ambitious little sister, bursting with talent but with no place to learn.   
A fine campus, workshops and libraries, manuscripts ancient and new, all came in time. The school was anchored in the city. Students became teachers. Sokka passed away, but the University remained. And with a noteworthy History department, the school’s memory went back longer than its own existence.   
And one day, a young lady visited the school. Her memory also went back longer than her existence – at least, in bits and snatches, dreams of a previous lifetime. And it was in search of that previous lifetime that she visited the University of Zei, and met an acquaintance, and heard a story…  
000  
Kya pushed open the door of the reading room, and Asami stepped inside. There was already a woman in there – the University’s specialist in Water Tribe history, Kya had said – and already three piles of books.  
Kya introduced them. “This is my friend, Professor Sedna. Sedna, this is Asami Sato. I think you’ve heard of her.”   
“A bit,” said Sedna, bowing to Asami. Sedna was a stout Water Tribe woman about Kya’s age. Her grey hair sat in two small buns on either side of her neck, and she wore blue bracelets around her wrists. Asami noticed, with a start, that she had no fingers on her right hand.   
“Yes,” Asami said hurriedly, groping for politeness. “I’m in the papers much more often than I would like.”  
“Asami is here researching the life of Avatar Kuruk!” Kya told Sedna.   
“Wonderful! I’m happy to help.” Sedna beamed, and Asami felt the need to clarify.  
“Just the myth about him and Ummi.”  
“Myth?” Sedna asked, giving Asami a look over her glasses.   
“I mean, the story about her being… um… abducted into the Spirit World.”   
“But that really happened,” Sedna said. “It’s not mythic, by any means. There’s records of it, too… Let’s see…” She went to her cart and pulled off a couple of books. “This one… and this one, too… Yes, start here. They’re general Water Tribe histories, but they offer plenty of information about that day.”   
“Really?” Asami said, as Sedna set the books in front of her. “But it was just one wedding.”  
“Weddings are recipes for disaster,” Kya commented, sitting down on the other side of the table, opposite a typewriter. “You wouldn’t believe the drama that swirled around Tenzin and Pema’s wedding. And Bumi’s!”  
“Bumi’s married?” Asami and Sedna asked at the same time. They looked at one another.  
“No, and that’s my point exactly,” Kya said.   
There was a pause. Sedna cleared her throat, and went on, “Fortunately for you, Miss Sato, there are copious records about Ummi’s kidnapping. To give a little historical context…”   
“Oh boy, here we go…” Kya groaned, and Sedna gave her a little shove.   
“I’d love some historical context!” Asami said, pulling the books on the table closer to her.   
“Excellent.” Sedna grinned, and as she talked, she began to pace back and forth. “What you need to understand is, Kuruk’s Era was something of a golden age for the Water Tribes. With all of the Nations obeying Yangchen’s Peace, the seas were safe like never before. The Water Tribes – North, South, and Swamp – sailed nonstop around the world, trading, selling, offering all kinds of skills. They accrued wealth, power, prestige – their embassies on coastal cities turned into Tribal towns in their own right. And, of course, the crowning glory, the Avatar was born to the Northern Tribe. Kuruk was handsome, highly born, a great fighter – he was the pinnacle of Tribal manhood.”  
Kya snorted.  
“What’s so funny?” Sedna asked.   
“The word ‘manhood,’” Kya said, and then laughed again.   
Sedna ignored it. “It tells you a lot, doesn’t it, just the fact that the Southern tribe could send a party all the way around the world to join the North for one festival? How safe the seas must have been. How peaceful.”  
Asami nodded fervently. “I never thought about that before. And Ummi was the quartermaster,” she added, before she thought.  
Sedna looked at her with surprise. “You’ve already done your research! That’s right, she was the quartermaster-general for the entire journey. A smart woman, everyone agreed on that. And when Kuruk fell in love with her – well, at first no one thought anything of it, he’d fallen in love half a dozen times before. But he actually made her a betrothal necklace.”   
“Oh,” Asami breathed.   
“And you can imagine what a shock that caused. The common-born daughter of the South, and the Northern Avatar. How uppity! How improper! But, the Chieftains quickly warmed to the idea. In such a time of travel, some people thought that this wedding would pave the way for greater peace and harmony. Maybe the two tribes could become one again.”   
Asami sat in rapt silence, trying to picture it. So much depending on one marriage!  
Kya interrupted, dryly, “What about the Swamp tribe?”   
Sedna glared at her. “The peanut gallery will keep editorial comments to herself,” she said.  
“Nobody cares about my poor Swamp cousins.”  
“Peanut gallery!” Sedna pointed at Kya, who fell silent. “After Kuruk made his necklace, in the Northern tradition, Ummi invoked a Southern tradition. She imposed three engagement challenges on him.”   
“Engagement challenges?” Asami asked. “What are those?”  
“I’m so glad you asked. They are tests that one partner imposes upon another – but more symbolic than anything else. The challenges are meant to show that the person proposing marriage can provide for a family. For instance, a woman might ask her future wife to provide a warm hearth, three fur coats, and meat to last all winter. A reminder of the economic imperative of marriage.”  
“Thrillingly romantic,” Kya remarked.   
“Just because you find economics boring…”   
“So three challenges?” Asami asked, lest they devolve into an argument. “Symbolic ones?”  
Sedna shot a last glare Kya’s way, then went on. “Ummi exceeded the usual expectations. She challenged Kuruk to build her a home at the North Pole. He did that, lickedy-split.”   
“Well, yeah,” Asami said. She shifted uncomfortably. Just after she had met Korra, she had dreamt of such a house, with walls of ice and stone. All these years later and Asami could still see it clearly. “Avatar stuff, that’d be easy.”  
Sedna grinned. “The next one was much harder. She challenged him to answer a series of math questions.”   
“Math?” Asami repeated.   
“The same sort of equations she’d had to work out every day as a quartermaster. Kuruk did his best, but at some point the questions overwhelmed him, and he asked her for help.”  
“And then she dumped him and sailed South, never to see him again,” remarked Kya.   
“No,” Asami said. “Wait. Let me guess.” She thought hard, and half guessed, half felt the answer. “Ummi liked that he asked for help. It meant that he wasn’t too proud to rely on her. He could admit to mistakes. Kuruk respected her and would listen to her.”  
“Quite so,” Sedna replied. “Remember, she was a Southern woman, used to being treated as an equal. But at this point, people started grumbling – who did this woman think she was, stringing along the Avatar? Did she really want to marry him or not?”   
“Did she?” Asami couldn’t stop herself from asking.  
“Oh, yes,” Sedna said, at the same time that Kya nodded. “If she hadn’t wanted to marry him, she could have just said no when he first asked.”   
“But the challenges…”   
“The challenges aren’t supposed to be real impediments.”  
“Well, in the North…” Kya paused, looking to Sedna. When the professor nodded, Kya went on. “In the North, a woman could pose her challenges as a way of getting out of a marriage she didn’t want. This didn’t always work. But, you see, people could respect a failed challenge as a reason to call off a wedding. In the South, the challenges were basically decoration. Ummi’s actions were confusing everyone.”   
“She was walking a fine line between two cultures,” Asami added, hoping she sounded smart.  
Sedna nodded. “And the last request was truly shocking. She asked that Kuruk stop fighting needlessly. Until that moment, he had been such a warrior, always eager to prove his strength in battle, even though there were no wars. Ummi told him that kind of cruel, petty behavior was not what she could stand in a husband.  
“The Northerners thought she was being outrageous… a woman, demanding that her husband not fight? A man who didn’t fight was not a man. Simple as that. But Kuruk agreed. He gave away his weapons –“   
“He didn’t throw them into the sea?” Asami asked.   
“What? No, that’s just a poetic phrasing. He gave up fighting, and she named the day of their wedding. Oh, it was a sight to see. The height of the Water Tribe’s golden age…” Sedna paused a moment, her eyes misting up, as she stared into the distance. “There were people from all over the world there, you know. Old friends of Kuruk’s. Most of the tribe was gathered in the palace for the celebration, but the Spirit Oasis, which hosted the ceremony, was packed to capacity.”   
“So everyone saw the kidnapping,” Asami said.  
Sedna paused. “Yes, but not everyone understood what they were seeing. Only those in the center of the Oasis got a good look. The others saw – a flash of light, a splash in the Pool, and they heard Kuruk screaming. Three men were holding him back. The bystanders thought he’d lost his mind. And Ummi was nowhere to be seen. You can imagine the confusion – everyone thought that it was a kidnapping, but some people from the South blamed the North, and vice versa.”  
“So much for peace and unity,” Kya said. “One thing goes haywire and they’re pointing the fingers at each other.”   
“You’re right about that,” Sedna said. “Gradually, people understood that spirits were involved, but now the question became, which one? And why? Was it just a bit of mischief? Some people actually began to wonder if Ummi had jumped into the water.”  
“She would never,” Asami said. “That’s absurd.”   
Sedna just shrugged. “Like I said. Imaginations run rampant. People never change in that respect. Meanwhile, Kuruk went into the Spirit World to find her. He came back without Ummi – bearing the worst news possible. Koh the Face Stealer had taken her face and soul, and dropped her body no one knew where. After that, the rest of the Tribe began to talk about Ummi as if she was dead, but Kuruk did not. The South thought that he was morbid, that he’d gone round the bend. The North tried to frame him as fearless and stalwart, never giving up… as you can imagine, it all undid the inter-tribal unity idea, and Kuruk was in no position to broker peace at all.   
“There was much about this incident that was written down – in the Tribe and in the other nations – and preserved in the oral culture, although some of it was lost during the Hundred Year’s War. Here,” she said, pushing the books towards Asami. “I’ve given you the bare bones, now you can go into the details.”   
“Thank you,” said Asami. “It’s so much to think about. I’d never have thought that so much was connected to them… but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised…”  
“The world is bound with secret knots,” Sedna said with a smile. “That’s the motto of Zei University. Thanks for letting me talk your ear off. You’re a good audience – unlike some people I know.”   
“Hey!”   
“Thank you for letting me share your reading room,” Asami replied.   
“That’s what the University is here for,” Kya told her. “Uncle always said, keep the memory alive, and share the history with everyone.”


End file.
